


Beginning

by Kannika



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26682427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kannika/pseuds/Kannika
Summary: Kyoko cries in her room, thinking of the boy everyone pushes down, until she forces herself to stop— because crying isn’t helping him. Nobody is. Nobody at all, when he needs it, when he deserves it. He doesn't need more silent pity. He needs someone to smile at him and mend his scrapes and tell him he doesn’t deserve to be treated like this.She’ll have to do it herself.
Relationships: Sasagawa Kyouko & Sawada Tsunayoshi, Sasagawa Kyouko/Sawada Tsunayoshi
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> My first piece about Kyoko! She's such an interesting character, and her relationship with Tsuna, romantic or platonic, is one of the cutest things about the show. You can view this as either.
> 
> I don't think they ever explained her home life, so my headcanon is that her parents are divorced. It would explain why she's so close to Ryohei and why they don't seem to notice anything they do. Although that's kind of the case for all the adults, I guess.

Kyoko confuses anger with sadness.

She doesn’t like anger— it scares her, a little. The intensity of it. She knows that other people are more intense than her, because it scares her when her chest starts to burn, but the amount of it makes the back of her skull itch. Makes her want to run from the room, run from the emotions, run from the confrontations even as they’re unfolding. 

And it leads to such terrible things, even with good intentions. Her brother, even though he’s so bright and loves her so much, is still full of it. He’s angry when he fights people that would hurt her, even if he does it out of love. Anger hurts him, and he hurts people because of it, and then they hurt him back and sometimes they hurt her too. She hates it all. It never seems to stop. But she doesn’t want to continue it. 

So when Kyoko sees things that should make her angry, she doesn’t feel it the right way. She feels the adrenaline rush, her fists clench, she wants to raise her voice— and she cries instead. She doesn’t like the anger, and it’s frightening to feel out of control like that. So it’s easier to cry. There’s so much anger— her parents arguing with each other, her brother taking too much joy in fighting, the cruel looks the girls at school give her— that it’s overwhelming. She does a lot of crying.

But she doesn’t think she’s ever cried so hard in her life as when she sees the boy with the nice brown eyes walking home alone. His bag is missing and there’s blood dribbling down his eye from when he fell down and he’s walking slowly with his head down. There are no tears on his cheeks, but it’s more like he can’t manage to cry than that it doesn’t hurt.

She wants to help him, she really does, but her mother steers her away, making sad noises all the while that Kyoko doesn’t understand. Her mother’s a grown-up. She can help him, but for some odd reason she won’t. She pretends she doesn’t see just because he’s not her kid and that sends her emotions into a wild spiral too because it’s yet another thing she cannot comprehend.

When they get home she goes into her room and cries, cries for someone she doesn’t even know. She cries because he doesn’t need any help to hurt himself but people push him down anyways and when he smiles he has so much hope.

She cries until she forces herself to stop— because crying isn’t helping him. Nobody is. Nobody at all, when he needs it, when he deserves it. He needs someone to smile at him and mend his scrapes and tell him he doesn’t deserve to be treated like this. 

She’ll have to do it herself.

So she smiles at him in the hallways, bright, kind as she can manage— and he’s so caught off guard by it that he runs into a wall staring at her. When she says hi, he spins around to look for someone behind him that she could be talking to instead, and she stands patiently until he faces her— and bolts. He expects a trap. Everyone laughs when he runs and she realizes they assumed she looked nice and said something cutting. 

Her blood boils. She locks herself in the bathroom and cries in the corner until she can breathe again. She’s heard the words her parents throw around when they’re angry and she’s tempted to throw them herself, just to see how it feels, but she chokes them down and smiles around them. She doesn’t want to scream for the boy. She wants to smile for him. She wants him to smile back and not be afraid of the people watching. She wants the people watching to smile, too. 

So she does it again. Smiles over and over, and each time he acts like she slapped him and everyone laughs and asks her why she tries. She wonders the same until she realizes he’s started to stare at her when she’s not looking, like he needs her smiles. She wonders about his parents and why he can’t get them at home. Maybe his home is like hers— broken, or just getting there, or trying to fix itself but doesn’t know where to start. 

So she smiles. Brighter with each day. She learns his name is Sawada Tsunayoshi, and he goes by Tsuna, and everyone else in school calls him Dame-Tsuna. Even the teachers. Even his mom, jokingly, on parent-teacher day, and he ducks his head and glances at Kyoko like he’s drowning and she smiles around teeth that want to snarl and his panic lessons just a touch. 

Brighter. Brighter. 

_I don’t know why you bother with him, Kyoko! He’s just a loser!_

Brighter. Every time she catches him looking, waiting. He disappears for a couple of days and when he comes back he’s so quiet and his head is so low and she realizes it’s been years and nobody else is copying her. No one. He looks at her hopefully and she smiles even though what she wants to do is sob. 

She thought he wasn’t coming back. The thought fills her mind with panic. With vast, protective anger that she can’t show because it’s not what ladies do. Ladies love. Ladies smile. Ladies laugh and when they don’t like something they grin and bear it.

The only way she can fight is to do what they expect of her, and give him what he needs. 

She smiles. 

_Good morning, Tsuna-kun!_

He returns her smile, slowly, and he stops missing days. She still swallows that fear when he runs late that this will be the day he gives up, but he keeps showing up. He keeps stumbling over his feet but meaning well. He keeps watching her. 

Kyoko smiles every time.


End file.
